


The Legend of the Golden Lion

by thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey



Series: The Red Paladin's Double [10]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Zan gets injured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9367919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey/pseuds/thegalrahobbitofplantetgalilfrey
Summary: mmm, I love this one. you're gonna have to read the last fanfic if you want to understand this one.





	

**Author's Note:**

> mmm, I love this one. you're gonna have to read the last fanfic if you want to understand this one.

Zan walked out of the medical facility rubbing his neck and cursing.  
“She got you, didn’t she?” Keith looked way more amused than he should.  
“Ah, yeah, I didn’t even know I had a tracking chip! Where’d that come from?”  
“All of you Galra have one,” Shiana yelled from sick bay, “You just don’t know it. Slaves have ‘em too. I’ve had to remove three now. Three!” Lance wandered by, right into the sick bay.  
“Hey, Shiana?”  
Shiana wiped the water she’d washed her hands off with onto a towel.  
“Yeah?”  
“How young do people on Neco get married?” She pondered that question a moment.  
“I’d say around Shiro’s age, although some get married as young as my age.”  
“Oh. On a completely different topic, did you ever have a boyfriend?”  
“No… Why?”  
“Then who’s Shang?” Shiana burst out laughing. She doubled over, slapping her knee and rolled around on the ground, holding her sides. Her laughter subsided to giggles and she lay there, panting, on the ground.  
“Oh, you… you thought Shang was my… oh. Ha. Sorry Lance, it’s just, Shang, Shang is my brother. Not my boyfriend, or my husband, if that’s what you were hinting at. My brother. That’s why I love him. That’s why I want him back.” She patted Lance on the shoulder. “Thank you for the laugh, though. I needed it.” She walked off, giggling. “Boyfriend. Ha. Gonna have to tell him that when we rescue him.”  
Lance felt way more relieved than he should’ve. She didn’t have a boyfriend. He was fine flirting with her. Although, he was slightly worried. He’d seen Shang’s size. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to mess with that guy’s sister. Zan wandered in, looking like a lost sheep.  
“Hey, is Shiana in here?” He peered around like she could be hiding behind a cyro pod or something.  
“No, why?” Zan looked embarrassed.  
“Well, Shiro and Pidge and Allura and Keith, especially Keith keep looking at me all distrustfully and Hunk just looks sympathetic all the time, so I was trying to find someone who didn’t look at me weird.” Lance sighed.  
“Boy, do I know that feeling. People are always looking at me like I’m weird.”  
“Probably because you are weird,” offered Zan, “Meant in the best possible way, of course.” Lance raised an eyebrow.  
“See, and now you’re looking at me weird. This is why I was trying to find Shiana.” The castle shook, and alarms blared. Lance shot to his feet.  
“Uh, does this happen often?”  
“We’re under attack!”  
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Lance raced to the command station, Zan not far behind. Outside a Galra fleet was attacking the castle. Each of the paladins rushed to their respective lions. Zan and Shiana watched from the window. They were doing it! They didn’t even need to form Voltron. Then a new wave was released. A continuous stream of laser fire concentrated on the black lion knocked the head of Voltron around, and it looked like he would fall. Then, a fighter pilot flew out of nowhere and blasted at them. It steadied the black lion, and the paladins formed Voltron, the strange jet covering them. The fleet didn’t stand a chance.  
The fighter jet landed back on the planet below, and the castle landed next to it. Shiro raced out of his lion as the fighter pilot walked out of her jet. She was maybe Shiana’s height, but looked a little older. Mostly humanoid, she had buzz-cut hair with stripes of blue in it and strangely catlike eyes with incredibly sharp canines.  
“You saved my life.” The girl inclined her head.  
“I saw you were in trouble, so I helped.”  
“What’s your name?”  
“Buzz.”  
“Oh, come on, that can’t possibly be your real name.” That was Lance. The blue paladin had also exited his lion, and it was crush at first sight. Shiro mentally sighed at the flirting that was to come. She frowned.  
“Well, I’m not going to just give strangers my name just because they asked, am I?”  
“I bet it’s something beautiful, just like you.” Shiro groaned. And there it was. She rolled her eyes.  
“Oh, yeah, we can trust her. Only people who are trying to trick us actually respond well to my flirting.” Shiana and Zan raced out of the castle, Shiana reaching them first. Zan doubled over, panting.  
“Never,” he panted, “challenge her to a race.” Lance panted him on the shoulder sympathetically.  
“Ah, so now you’ve learned the ‘never challenge Shiana to anything because she will destroy you’ rule. It was only a matter of time.” Shiro turned back to Buzz.  
“Lance thinks we can trust you, and I agree with his judgement, but I do have to ask. Why are you out here in the middle of nowhere?” She looked at him piercingly.  
“I’m chasing a legend. The legend of the golden lion.” Shiro raised an eyebrow.  
“The golden lion?”  
“Yes. Legends say that after Altea was destroyed, a few remaining scientists were rounded up by Zarkon. He was furious that the lions had remained out of his grasp and demanded they make a new Voltron. They made one lion, the golden lion, an orb for it, and five other orbs, meant for the original lions. They give the lions the ability to grow and shrink. Then they escaped in the gold lion. They hid it on this planet, although no one knows where. I’m trying to find it.”  
“Sounds interesting. And the orbs could be useful.” A sniff from Red.  
I am just fine the way I am. These orbs will only destroy my individuality.  
Oh, Red, you know I love you, but you aren’t exactly inconspicuous, and you are a bit of a pain to park. Another haughty sniff, and Red activated her particle barrier, locking a startled Keith inside. Shiana winced.  
“Whoops.”  
“Why don’t we help you?” Buzz’s head jerked up.  
“Help me?”  
“Find the golden lion. It may not be a part of Voltron, but it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra pair of eyes out there. How strong is your connection to it?” Buzz shook her head.  
“There is no psychic connection. The golden lion was not really as much of a creature of magic as your lions are. Anyone could fly her, provided that they are a decent pilot. That’s why I haven’t found her yet.” Shiana nodded thoughtfully.  
“We’ll just have to split up and search.”  
“Why would you help me?”  
“Well, you saved Shiro, so we owe you one. Also, I like you. And maybe if we find the golden lion we’ll get a clue as to where the orbs are.”  
Zan spoke up.  
“If Shiro, Pidge, Hunk and Keith took the air, Lance took the water, and we took the ground, we could probably find it. What do you say, Shiro?” Shiro nodded.  
“Sounds good. Let’s get started.” They searched for hours, the air teams eventually turning to ground teams when they had flown over the whole planet. Zan ran ahead. It turned out that while he was an abysmal fighter and a failure of a guard, he was quite good at searching for things. He was always running ahead, or was the most willing to climb a tree to figure out where they were. It was no wonder that he was the one who found the cave.  
“Hey, guys! I found a weird cave, and there’s a lion carved in the ceiling with an arrow pointing in one direction. I think this is the right place. The others promised they’d be there soon, and Shiana and Buzz ventured into the cave with him. They followed the arrow until they saw a breathtaking sight. A lion, made of gold, not as big as Shiro’s lion, but bigger than Red. And in front of it were six orbs.  
Buzz ran onto the lion, exploring every nook and cranny.  
“Oh, cool,” she shouted, “There’s a cyro pod on board in case you get injured!” Shiana picked up the red orb. It was positively throbbing with power. Buzz ran out of the lion and behind her and Zan.  
“Cool, isn’t it?” Then she smacked them both over the heads with the butt of her gun.  
Buzz stared at her two victims, and shook her head. Poor gullible idiots. She tied them up, then put all of the orbs in a bag and turned on a com.  
“Hey, it’s Buzz. I’ve found the golden lion and the orbs.”  
“Good. We’ll be coming for them.”  
“Buzz? What’s going on?” Buzz whirled around. The other paladins were standing in the cave entrance, taking in the scene. She cursed, and held her gun up to Shiana’s head.  
“Don’t move!” They dropped their weapons slowly, holding up hands in surrender. She kept her eye on Shiro. She knew what that arm could do.  
“Buzz, what’re you doing?”  
“This lion, and these orbs are going to the Galra. If you do what I say, none of you will.”  
“Why?”  
“Because they’re paying me to.”  
“What? You would sell us out for money?” Buzz felt a pang of guilt. She did rather like these people.”  
“Everybody has their price,” she snarled, “It isn’t always money like it was for me.” They all burst out protesting. She held up a hand.  
“Don’t act so self-righteous! Shiana, Pidge, how far would you go to save your families?” They quieted. She spun to Lance. “Lance, how far would you go to keep your planet safe?” His protest died in its making, “Keith, how much would you do to have a living mother and a normal life?” He glowered at her. “Shiro. How far would you go to erase the things you did and the things done to you?” Dead silence. Shiro clenched and unclenched his metal arm. She turned to the yellow paladin. “Hunk…” She waved her hand vaguely. “I got nothing. You’re too loyal. But aside from you, none of you can judge me for this. She backed into the golden lion and flew away, leaving the paladins to help their teammates.  
“I can’t believe she did that! I really can’t. I didn’t see it in her mind, or anything.”  
“I guess she is very good at burying secrets,” Lance remarked quietly. Shiro looked especially distraught. After all, she had saved his life, but then she’d turned around to destroy him. Shiana’s head shot up, and she combed deeper into the cave.  
“Uh, Shiana?”  
“Come on!” Zan looked around before following.  
“What’s going on?”  
“This cave, it was man-made. So why would you bother building a cave so far in only to put the treasure on the very outside? Ergo, there must be something down this way!”  
“There are plenty of reasons to build down farther. This could be their living space. If Zarkon attacked, he would take the lion and orbs and leave. They could’ve been planning to move the lion down farther, but never got to it.”  
“Stop being such a party downer, Zan! I’m sure there’s something down here.”  
“Skeletons,” he muttered, “Bats, rats, traps, ancient monsters.” She smacked him.  
“Stop it!”  
“Fine, fine, not trying to ruin your treasure hunting fun.” He continued to say all the possible things that could be down in the caves anyway. “Wolves, tree roots to trip on, dust, ooo, big things with teeth! Bet there’s lots of those. Spiders, wasps, oh, what’s this?” for all his advised caution, he pressed the button anyway.  
“Zan!” a beautiful landscape spread around them. Shiana gasped. She had only ever had anything like this described to her by Allura and the other Voltron paladins. A hologram of an Altean scientist sprang to life.  
“Hello, if you’re listening to this, then you’ve discovered that four of the six orbs are duds. We didn’t want to put them all in one place, so they’re scattered all over this planet.” A hologram of the planet popped up, with a glowing red dot in the middle of a mountain range. “This is where the first of the orbs is to be found. Each of us scientists hid an orb, along with a map of where the next one is to be found. I wish you luck in finding them.” The hologram disappeared, along with the landscape. The cave was dark again. Shiana squealed and jumped up and down, holding Zan’s hands.  
“They’re not lost, we can find them, we just need to find them!” They raced back up the cave to tell the other paladins the good news.  
“You miserable bounty hunter! Did you really think you could trick me?” The Galra commander threw down the blue, black, green and yellow orbs. They shattered like glass. Buzz looked at them. They were glass.  
“Sir, I didn’t know. I brought you the lion and the orbs, now where’s my money?” He tossed her a card. She looked at it suspiciously. “This isn’t the amount we agreed on!”  
“Half the job, half the price. Until you find me those other orbs, half of the payment stays with me.” Buzz hissed like a cat at him before running back to her ship and blasting back to the planet she had spent months on already.  
“No! Why! Seriously, the Alteans think they’re so smart sending me on a scavenger hunt through this miserable hunk of dirt. She shot the transmitter of the hologram in disgust. No doubt they were already on the trail of the orbs, but if the paladins came back, she wasn’t going to let them see this recording.  
“Come on, Hunk! Shove!” The yellow lion was shoving on a boulder that Shiana said was covering a cave entrance. It rolled aside, and a nasty looking animal flapped out drunkenly into the sunlight before flying away.  
“Aww, no, not those things,” Zan grumbled, “They’re awful.”  
“What? What are they?”  
“I don’t know their names, but I had to handle them for the arena. They’ve got a venomous bite, and I had to build an immunity.” He wrinkled his nose. “I was sick for weeks before the immunity kicked in.”  
“Do you still have the immunity?”  
“Eh, probably, but I don’t know. Why?” Shiana smiled up at him pleadingly. “Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Those things are vicious. I am not going in there.”  
“Please, Zan?” She batted her eyelashes innocently.  
“Rrrr. Fine. You owe me one.” He held his breath and ran in. She could hear screeching as he woke the whatever-they-weres up and Zan running out of the cave.  
“Ahhhhhhhh!!!!” A whole flock of bat things were chasing Zan out of the cave, holding the blue orb. He ran frantically around, trying to shake them away. Shiana giggled. She slipped into the cave and looked at the next coordinate. Then she ran back out to watch Zan jump into a lake. The aliens screeched in disappointment and flew back to their cave. He surfaced, spluttering.  
“Never, ever again.”  
“sorry.” They set off for the next coordinate.  
Buzz roared and shot a couple more bat creatures. They had left her alone after she had shot a few of them, but she was frustrated. They had beaten her to it! Now she just had the coordinate of the next one. She stomped moodily back to her jet. She would complete her mission, no matter what it took.  
“Ok. Shrink. Now Lance.” After discovering that the coordinates of the next orb were in a tree infested with the alien bats, Zan had refused to even go near it. Of course, no one else was immune to the poison, so Lance had to figure out how to shrink the lion to get it. He was successful, and even managed to do it without the bats waking up. He also had looked at their next coordinates. They continued on.  
Buzz blew up the tree the bats were in. Always one step ahead of her. Always. There had to be a better way of doing this. She pulled up a map. She marked where all of the orbs had been along with where the next one was. Well, if that’s where they all were, logically there was only one place the last orb could be.  
“Got it! Ok, Zan! You can let me down now!”  
“How?” The yellow orb had been up high, but all of the lions had gone to investigate something or other, so Shiana was standing on Zan’s shoulders.  
“I don’t know, slowly sit down or something.” He started to lower himself, before there was a screech and a thump. Zan disappeared, and Shiana had to grab onto a branch to keep from falling. They had been already up in the tree until it had run out of easily accessible branches and she had climbed onto Zan.  
“Ouch.”  
“Was that one of those bats?”  
“Yes, I think it followed me. Oh, the bite’s turning purple. That’s not good.”  
“Zan, I’m stuck.”  
“That’s bad. Hold on, I’ll find you a rope or vine or something.”  
“No, no, don’t go anywhere. Just stand right there.”  
“Right here?” he sounded puzzled.  
“Little to the left… perfect.” She let go. Zan made an attempt to catch her, but she slammed into him like a cannon ball and they both went to the ground.  
“Thank you!” She bounced up. He groaned and pulled leaves out of his hair.  
“Don’t mention it. Just don’t do it again.”  
“Guys, I saw the last coordinates! We just need to get the black orb, and then we can track down the gold and red ones!” She ran, pulling Zan behind her. He sighed and resigned himself to what would probably be one more pain-fest.  
“There. I’ve given you the black orb. Now pay me the rest of the money.”  
“I said all of them! I want all six orbs! Get them from whoever stole them and bring them to me, or I’ll get them myself!” Buzz growled, but she turned to go back to her jet. A calming voice filled her head, and she stopped short.  
_Why are you leaving, my pilot? Again? Why do you not take me with you?_ Buzz wasn’t completely sure, but this seemed like how Shiana had described her connection with the red lion. The gold lion was alive. It had chosen her. And she had left it with the Galra.  
_Why are you leaving me with enemies, and fighting against friends?_  
 _I don’t know. But I will take you with me now._  
“No. I’m not going to fight the paladins any longer.” She charged the commander like a wild animal and wrestled the black orb away from him. She grabbed the other two orbs as well before running as fast as she could to the hangar, avoiding laser fire. The golden lion was waiting for her. The two were one, and they let out a roar of happiness as they soared into the sky.  
“It’s not here! Where did it go?” Zan pressed a button like the one in the first cave. Buzz’s face popped up.  
“If you’re watching this, well, I have the black orb and it’s probably already in Galra hands. And you thought you could get them all. I wish I were there to watch you all get angry. Bet smoke is literally pouring out of Keith’s ears.” Shiana looked at her fellow paladin, and indeed, he looked like he was about to explode. “Uh, huh, bye!” She disappeared.  
“I can’t believe her! She literally just did that to gloat at us!”  
“Calm down Keith.”  
“No! She just rubbed it in our faces that we have the same number of orbs!” A streak of light appeared in the sky and the golden lion thudded down next to them. Buzz sashayed out, looking worried but very pleased with herself at the same time.  
“You need to get out of here, the Galra are coming for you.” Keith already had his sword to her throat.  
“Where are the other orbs?”  
“I have them, but the Galra know you’re here and they’re coming.”  
“I don’t trust you.”  
“Good, you probably shouldn’t, I wouldn’t trust me, but do you trust the golden lion? Turns out she’s alive.”  
_She’s right. The golden lion is alive. Not in the same way we are, but still alive. And from what I can see, Buzz attacked a Galra commander, stole the orbs from him and then stole her away to warn us._  
“We can trust her, for now.” All of the paladins looked at Shiana in surprise.  
“No offense, Shiana, but last time she kept her true intentions from you. How do we know she’s not again?”  
“Because I’m not reading her mind. Red’s reading the gold lion’s.” Keith’s sword deactivated, but he still looked at Buzz distrustfully. She grinned and crossed her arms.  
“What’d I tell ya?” Keith just grumbled something incomprehensible and stomped off to Red. Shiana rubbed her temples and sighed.  
“So, you were saying what about the Galra?”  
“They’ve summoned a giant fleet, and they’re coming here.”  
“How soon?”  
“You have maybe a minute.” Another streak of light appeared on the horizon and they could make out the shape of Galra ships.  
“Scratch that, we have ten seconds.” Robot drones shot out of the descending airship and commenced firing. They had cut the paladins off from their lions. All except for Keith, who had stomped off to the red lion and he took to the air, blasting at the drones. But tanks and land sentries had shot out as well, and the paladins of land were occupied. Buzz shot into the golden lion and joined Keith, along with the castle of lions, in the air.  
They were winning. The Galra were dropping like flies, both on the ground and in the air. Shiana blasted another robot. Where was Zan? Oh. Hiding behind a rock, trying to convince living soldiers to join them. Little pacifist coward. One of them had him cornered though, and Shiana cursed as she remembered that Zan never had a weapon with him.  
“Traitor!” Zan held up his hands peaceably.  
“Hey, I don’t really like fighting. I don’t see the point. Empire’s big enough, leave the rest of the universe alone. But, you know, I was just a guard. I guess you like fighting.”  
“I should blast your brains out.” Zan shrugged.  
“Go ahead. I don’t have that many anyway, or so I’ve been told. Many times.” Shiana hit the guy with a dart and he collapsed. She picked up the gun and handed it to Zan.  
“At least defend yourself.”  
“Still don’t have a reason to fight.” Shiana sighed and went back to fighting robots, leaving Zan to his own devices. There were only a few robots left, and most of the drones were destroyed. They were quickly disposed of.  
“Shiana! Look out!” Shiana turned to see a tank rumbling toward her. A shot rang out from Zan’s rock, and the robot driving the tank fell over silently. But the tank kept rumbling toward her. She was trapped.  
Lance turned. He could she the tank. He could see Shiana. He started to run. But Zan got there first.  
Shiana felt hands shoving her out of the path of the tank, and saw a flash of purple. Zan. He looked right at her, and then the tank hit him. It finally hit a rock, and stood still.  
“Zan!” Shiana could see his hand sticking out from under the tank and ran towards it. She ejected her knives and started to slice away the wheel he was under. Lance was there too, digging under the tank. And then the rest of them caught up, Shiro putting his shoulders under the tank and heaving, trying to shove it up, using the strength of his metal arm. Hunk joined Lance in digging, Pidge in slicing. Shiro gave a huge heave. There! Shiana could see his face, pale and sweaty. She carefully dragged him out from under the tank and Shiro let go, the tank thudding to the ground, shaking the earth. Shiana was holding Zan. To say he didn’t look good was an understatement. His breathing was ragged, and Shiana could see that his back was broken, along with most of his ribs and both of his legs. She slipped in for a moment and saw that one of his lungs was punctured and he had suffered severe internal damage. She held his hand and cried.  
“Why? You fought. Why?” His eyes fluttered open at her voice.  
“Guess… Guess I found something worth fighting for,” he croaked. He smiled weakly at her. “Remember? My life is worthless.” She squeezed his hand tightly.  
“No, no it’s not!” He closed his eyes. The golden lion landed next to them and Buzz ran out. She was shouting something, but Shiana couldn’t hear her. She could only hear the rasping, shuddering breath of the dying Galra. Buzz and Shiro both grabbed hold of Zan and took him into the golden lion. What were they doing? They were hurting him! She ran after them, and then stopped when she saw what they were doing. They gently set Zan into the cyro pod and the surface covered his twisted form, the cold hissing down. He was safe. Safe to heal. Maybe. If he could ever come out of the cyro pod. Shiro opened his arms and she ran into them, metal and human arms wrapping around her. She could feel Buzz’s hand on her shoulder as she sank into Shiro’s embrace, let him hold her. This reminded her of Shang. Shang hugging her the night their father died, the night their mother was taken away. Safe in his embrace. The other paladins came in too, adding their comfort to the embrace, and Shiana could almost imagine Zan in the hug as well, smiling his nervous little smile and telling her it was okay.  
“Do you have to go?” Buzz smiled at the little mind reader, who she was beginning to think of as a younger sister.  
“You mean, ‘do you have to take Zan away’ don’t you?”  
“No! Well, a little bit, but I’ll miss you, too.” Buzz ruffled her hair playfully and blew a bubble in her bubble gum, which Lance had introduced her to.  
“‘Fraid so, Shiana. I think it’ll be better for all of us if I go and just kind of play it by ear. Never been particularly good at planning, and if we stick together, then what’s the point of having a lion that isn’t necessary to form Voltron?” She finished loading supplies onto the golden lion and saluted. Shiro had come out and was watching. “See you around, valiant commander!” He waved and she climbed into the golden lion and prepared to lift off. Shiana sat there, watching. Allura came out and put a hand on Shiana’s shoulder.  
“I know you’ll miss her, and Zan, but she will be good on her own. A lone vigilante, friend of Voltron, always out on the side of justice. She’ll become her own legend. The legend of the golden lion, and her fearless pilot.”  
Buzz ran to the controls and sat down with a grin and a wink, before blowing a bubble and blasting off into space.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, but just imagine the golden lion flying out of the sunset, zooming in to see Buzz's face with the wink and bubble, with Allura's voice playing in the background. Great ending for an actual episode. Poor Zan. I'm not exactly sure what he did for me to do that to him.


End file.
